Venturing Through Portals: The Intriguing World of Isekai and the Spell of Reincarnation

Embark on an enchanting escapade with us as we navigate the magical corridors of Isekai, a genre where ordinary lives are catapulted into extraordinary adventures. Imagine a reality where every end is but a doorway to another beginning; we unravel the threads of reincarnation that weave through tales like "Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation," offering a glimpse into lives reborn with memories intact. The charm of Isekai isn't lost on us as we exchange laughs over titles that seem to stretch on forever and dissect the strengths of female powerhouses in Otome Isekai, proving that a sharp mind can be as mighty as the fiercest blade.

Sit tight as we traverse the blurred lines between the fantastical and the familiar, discussing how classics like "Inuyasha" have set the stage for a genre that continues to evolve. The digital realm gets its due when we champion "Digimon" as a rightful member of the Isekai family, bridging the gap between pixels and reality. Our hearts aren't spared in this episode—we share our favorite 'ships' and the romances we yearn to see bloom, from the halls of "Fullmetal Alchemist" to the myriad worlds of harem anime. And because we can't resist a good cliffhanger, we teasingly hint at a current manga read about yet another Isekai protagonist's ventures, without spilling the title—you'll have to tune in for that reveal!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey there and welcome back to Rival Reviews, a podcast for anime and manga recommendations and reviews. As always, I'm your host, dj, and this week I want to take you on a journey, a land where ridiculously descriptive long titles meet just as ridiculous harems. That's right. This week we're talking about Isakai, now Folder Scroger. I know for a fact that this episode is going to have a whole, probably bunch of Japanese names that I'm going to butcher, so I apologize beforehand. But yeah, essentially, for those who are not aware, isakai is one of those type of genres where, whether it's reincarnation after death, summoning into your favorite video game or or book, or even being summoned all of a sudden to a fantasy land where you are immediately met with the king of some distinct country saying that you are the hero and you need to save everybody that's generally everything that kind of encompasses under the umbrella of Isakai. I will say I definitely do enjoy the idea of reincarnation. Probably the most I do the fact that you know you not to get too into the idea of religion or anything like that for that matter, but I like to think that you know if if there is going to be something after death being reincarnated into, like some kind of fantasy land where I can, you know, shoot a fireball and or, or, or become a knight or something like that sounds a lot better than just, you know, inevitable darkness. So, yeah, so I think that's why that I generally enjoy this genre is just the idea of that. I always did find the idea of summoning a little funny, just due to the fact that it's always kind of follows the same pattern where you know they get sucked up into a portal off the street or something like that and then all of a sudden they're kind of like in this like throne room, basically said hey, sorry for taking you out of your, you know your everyday life, but I'm going to throw you all this responsibility and your only hope. So, good luck. Basically, a great example.

Speaker 1: 2:42

I think one of the best examples that I can I can say of this is, if you've watched, a shield hero is like all of a sudden he just gets summoned and just gets told what to do and then, of course, like not too much spoilers due to the fact that I think this happens in the first episode but like immediately gets screwed over by the princess of the country and basically for the first good chunk of the story is him just fixing problems and also dealing with the fact that the royal family has made them meet him, hated by everybody. And I like the way that it did that in terms of, like you know, I'm going to take you away from your everything that you love, your family, your friends, your family, everything else, like that. Give you this responsibility and then also just totally screw you right at the beginning. I find I always found that really funny. And then I would say, as I was speaking a lot to this last week on a tome music guys, I feel like a lot of them follow the immersion subplot where, whether it's a book that they wrote or a book that they read, and they have all of this insider information about what's going to happen in the story and like pivotal story points that they can take advantage of and stuff like that. I also like the angle of this one, just due to the fact that, like I said, it's it's Well one. What I like about two is that it's not just Usually in most isekais it's like some kind of overpowered male character where I find in most atomi isekais it's a strong female lead and instead of having to resort to, you know overpowered magic and and Sword fighting and don't get me wrong like, obviously I love those things and everything else like that, but I like the break of you know them, having to be, you know, a lady of the court and having to use their words instead of Instead of like a sword in a fight and like kind of like like the, the fighting of the of the backhanded compliments. I always found that really fun.

Speaker 1: 5:01

What I also find truly hilarious about the genre is that, without fail, all of the titles are completely ridiculous and most of the titles are like, very like to the point, like obviously, like you can get straight to the point where, like, for instance, you can go like my reincarnated life as a slime, like okay, well, right out the bat, we know exactly what this is going to Cover and exactly what's going on. I've brought in a couple other. I wrote down some of the most ridiculous titles that I could find. Probably more just get more ridiculous, and I swear what I find the most is that I they're getting longer. They have to be getting longer, and I know that they're doing it on purpose. They have to be. There's no way it's on accident. So some of the ridiculous titles that I was able to find was Do your love your mom and her to hit multi combo. I've been killing slimes for 300 years and maxed out my level, and then the one that I found that took the cake for Probably one of the longest I had ever seen.

Speaker 1: 6:11

The former top one sub character, training diary colon, a dedicated player, is currently conquering another world. That, if that's not a mouthful, I really don't know what is. And right there in the title, you know exactly what you're strapped in for and what you're going to be reading about, which I guess you could say is a plus or a minus. I'll leave that up for you to decide. Yeah, that being said, I know that there is a lot of hate to the genre as well.

Speaker 1: 6:47

One of the ones that I know that gets a certain amount of hate is obviously sort of online. Whether this is just because of, like you know, the story is just Repetitive. There's some questionable things that happen, like you know, the whole Kind of brother sister Weirdness in the second season. That was kind of weird. Very happy that they strayed away from that directly after that season, and I do also understand that it gets to the point where you get so many of the same thing, things where you know the main character is completely overpowered or or Like they can never lose, or or things like that.

Speaker 1: 7:33

But I think it's also the fun of this genre is that you can just turn off your brain and just watch mindless magic fights, and especially the way that, the way animation is and everything else. Now the fights are crazy good looking and so, you know, is the story repetitive? Is it really obvious as to what's going to happen next? Is it going to follow the same train of thought where you know there's a crazy harem and they're only going to get more overpowered and they're they're never going to have any troubles doing anything and everything, and but that's you know that's part of the plot. So you know, I'm a very firm believer that if you don't like it, that's OK, but you don't have to be rude to somebody who does enjoy the genre, and I would say, if anything, that that's the takeaway for any most things, whether it just be anime related or not, like there's there's no reason to hate on something that somebody else likes, and I am fully aware that, especially in this genre, it gets a lot of unnecessary hate for, for whatever reason. Yeah, that being said, I did it once again, kind of make my own, once again, kind of make my top five as to what I kind of felt were my favorite or important is the guys that I've watched.

Speaker 1: 9:11

So first one I kind of put on the list and I've kind of already talked about is sort of online one of the really great ones, kind of hits on the immersion, one where you know, gets stuck in the video game, everything else like that. It's a great watch. I don't understand why this anime gets so much hate. I find that it's another good, really introductory series as well and, yeah, I really don't understand the hate that it gets because personally I think the fights and the struggle and especially the first season, like when they were truly stuck and it was like the death game and everything else like that, I would argue that it's probably one of one of the more favorites of any kind of anime plot that I've ever watched and though I understand that it kind of went off the rails there a little bit Kind of later on and then now it's kind of turned more into a selective immersive is a guy type of situation, I guess I did still really enjoy the first season and I think that the strength of the first season deserves the credit and I don't think that it should get as nearly as much hate as it does.

Speaker 1: 10:30

So yeah, next one, just because I kind of tied it into Sword or Online, just because it kind of followed the same idea of the immersion into, like a video game setting, was Log Horizon. What I always found nice about this one is that it's it is kind of very similar to the sense of Sword Online, where they're like in the game but there isn't really like the, the, the death game penalty really, as we've seen, is they do revive, they get like, basically like when they do die or whatever, they get sent to back to the church in their hometown or whatever, and then they get to start again. But what I also like about this one is that it it's more politically based where, like you know, a whole server of people basically woke up, basically woke up in a video game that they played and then, now that they're stuck here, they have to actually learn how to like. I found that, like in, for instance, like in Sword Online, it kind of just like all of a sudden, like the entry 10 was there and like stores were open and like none of the how that happened ever really got introduced. And that's what I find really cool about Log Horizon is that you had to see, like the creation of councils and the creation of the towns and people finding what they're good at and they, like I. Just I found that there was a lot more flushing out of the world and how it was created versus just the overarching proof, like idea of okay, but how do we get out of here? Obviously, that is an important thing, but I enjoyed the world building in Law Horizon a lot more Kind of tearing off from that idea.

Speaker 1: 12:26

Number three I've put again I apologize Mushoku Tensai, jobless reincarnation. I would argue that this is probably the first one that I ever watched with the idea of reincarnation, where the idea is that they they came from the real world or earth or whatever, and then they were reincarnated with their past memories into this fantasy world and how they were able to kind of utilize the memories of the person that they were and who they have now become again. I will obviously preface that you know was awakened to already, like the, the logic of I, you know the power of knowledge and you know started learning magic when they were like three or whatever, so they had that going for them. But I do find that it was nice that they then started adding struggle and characters that were clearly stronger than him and that he still had a lot to learn and he wasn't just like overwhelmingly more powerful than everybody else in in the show. And what I also thought that this show did really well was it showed so again. Obviously, if you haven't seen it, I don't want to spoil too much, but I do enjoy that because his past self was a shut in and like felt very low about himself and everything else like that. That that actually translated and he actually had to not only grow as this new person in this new world, but also grow as the person that he used to be, and I thought that that was a really cool thing that they incorporated into this story.

Speaker 1: 14:22

So next one on the list is in yasha. Reason for this being on my list is that it's probably one of the first enemies that I ever completed from start to finish, also one of the first enemies that I ever watched, and what I liked about this one is the was the idea of the, the isekai, of the going back and forth, like being able to go, so, basically, you know, going from the I can't remember what, but like back in the past, basically, and being able to go back and forth through the well and kind of having that freedom of going back and forth between the two worlds. Because a lot of the time we watch these isekaisen, the whole over over thing is like, you know, oh I have to beat the bad guy so I can get home, or oh, I have to be the bad guy to find the way home, or that that's always like the, the end goal, where this one, you know she wanted to go back and everything else like that, because she had a whole other life and friends, and then you know, at some point, or another family on this other side of the well as well as from her original world, and kind of being able to juggle the two and everything else like that. I thought that that was a really cool way to go about the isekai genre that not, at least in my opinion, has been replicated, since, unless you count, what I count is number five, and I know I'm gonna get a lot of slack for this, but a number five on my list is Digimon. Nobody would think that this is an isekai. But hear me out, they're in the real world. They're at camp. They get dragged into another world. That's isekai, and If what.

Speaker 1: 16:10

As soon as I thought about that I knew I had to put it on this list because I I Loved a juman. I find that it's fun, it's great and Again, it's one of those. It's one of those Isekai's where it kind of has that return element. But then once the return I Guess issue had been solved, it was no longer the primary focus and it was like more about the Saving this secondary world that had become a second home to the DigiDestin and everything else like that. And then you know, kind of the flip flop of a almost kind of like a I guess a reverse isekai were like they were then dealing with Evil Digimon in the real world, which I thought was again really cool and a really different take on the way things are Done generally in this genre. So that's why that was in number five.

Speaker 1: 17:08

So I guess next step is to then now go over the questions of from last week. So we had a couple here. Let's see who is your favorite ship. That should have happened but didn't. Okay, so this is Again, I keep bringing this up, but it is also one of my favorite animes. But Mustang and Hawkeye 100%. You know they, they teased it and obviously they care for each other very much and I understand that they're going for the whole. You know they're strong comrades and you know they're. They're the ones that they trust the most out of them, the most out of each other and everything else like that. But I wanted them together so bad and I and I still to this day, truly hope that it happens.

Speaker 1: 17:59

That would be followed very closely by Miku over Yotsuba in the quintessential quintuplets. I don't care what everybody says. I I like the chemistry between the male lead in Miku so much better than with Yotsuba and I still, to this day, do not understand why it went that way. If you've read it, I'd love to hear your opinion on that argument, because I am I crazy? I don't think I'm crazy. Maybe I'm crazy and I'm gonna follow that up with basically any harem romance that chooses some ridiculous choice that was either introduced at the beginning of the of the thing, where it was clearly that she was gonna be the fail, the female lead. But you know there's a childhood best friend that they've had the entire time there and they were never together with.

Speaker 1: 18:59

Very good example of this Nizakoi I. I I'm just gonna leave it at that. I've never understood it, and then I guess, yeah, currently what I'm reading. So currently what I'm reading is a manga called Rusu again apologize, rusu no Himo seikatsu. I don't really know what the English of that is, but essentially, this is again one of those, I guess summoning Isakai's where, basically, he's summoned to this one. I find interesting though, because instead of like being OP or, you know, having to be the hero to defeat the back eye, he's actually summoned to be the new king of a country, which I find kind of super interesting, where, you know, there's no real fighting. It's like more all about like kind of the politics. There is obviously like some magical elements involved in everything else, like that, but none of that really comes from the male lead, which is interesting. So, yeah, so I would give that a read if you maybe have some time. Yeah, so that's all I have for this week.

Speaker 1: 20:12

Next week I'm thinking about going into the dub versus sub element and kind of what I feel are some strong dubs in comparison to subs, and kind of the argument as to Not so much which one is better, but you know why people some prefer ones over the other. So, as always, thank you for listening. Once again, thank you for any reviews that I got this week and everything else like that, and for the people that gave me the questions. That's awesome and, like I said, at the end of the day, that's what I kind of want this more to be about is a conversation between between us. So, once again, it's rival X reviews on Twitter, instagram, facebook and then, right, well, use that gmailcom if you just want to email me any questions or or comments or anything else like that. And yeah, I will see you guys in the next one. Bye, bye.